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There is great jobs news from last month. 288,000 jobs were added in April, the numbers from March were revised up, and the unemployment rate took a nose dive to hit the lowest since the beginning of the Bush financial crisis in September of 2008. The stock market responded by rallying to new heights after the numbers beat Wall Street's estimates by a good margin.

In the mean time, the Congressional Budget Office released estimates indicating that the Affordable Care Act is costing less and insuring more people than previously thought, despite GOP's state-based stonewalling of the Medicaid expansion. Which means, you know, their dreams of winning an election on the promise of taking away health care from now 12 million people this year alone is fast turning into a nightmare.

So, how do you respond to the unqualified success and vindication of President Obama's economic and health care policies if you are a Washington Republican? Do you respond by raising the minimum wage? Psst. Do you respond by reinvesting in America? Oh, investment, shminvestment. But they had to have a response. How does the party that has universally obstructed every attempt of this president to get the economy back on track after their own policies led to the greatest economic calamity in a century respond to the news that the last vestiges of the Great Recession has finally been reversed, with the unemployment rate returning to pre-crash numbers?

With a shiny object. You know it. I know it. It's called Benghazi. After trying again and again to pin the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi on President Obama and his administration and failing more spectacularly each time than the last and even after their own report embarrassingly admitted that their own storyline on Benghazi was just that, a story, the Republicans are back. This time, they are launching - you guessed it, a new "special investigation" - targeting emails from the White House communications office. Evidently, they have got a problem that the White House had a communication strategy about Benghazi ... at all.

Sure, the GOP propensity for proving themselves more ridiculous has something to do with their revival of Benghazi for the zillionth time.... You know what, I lost track whether Republicans held more votes to repeal Obamacare or to investigate Benghazi. But if you believe that the announcement to form yet another special investigatory committee comes on the second day of May after a blazingly successful March and April for the administration in terms of health care and economic news comes as a mere coincidence, you don't know Republicans.

They don't really want to investigate Benghazi - because they know that ultimately, a fair investigation will come back to haunt the GOP's own home-grown intolerance movement. But the problem is bigger than just going after the president. Since last October, Republicans neatly stacked their own reality for the 2014 elections: run against Obamacare. Run against Obamacare as a failure, and run against it as a job killer. Both of those houses of cards have now been blown apart by the winds of people wanting health care and businesses hiring people.

Suddenly, simply obstructing is not enough. Simply holding back the president's jobs initiatives is inadequate. The Republicans need a distraction, and they need it badly. Hence the trimphant return of Benghazi - the last refuge of the GOP scoundrel.

Please proceed, Boehner. Witch hunts can be disconcerting, but when they keep hunting the same witch again, and again, and again, and again, each time being slapped down harder than the last, this is simply schadenfreude for me. Maybe we'll get to see Darrell Issa and John Boehner have a cry-off.

President Obama, on his trip to Africa and responding to GOP fit about the historic nuclear deal with Iran, brilliantly namechecked Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump and threw a bunch of lit firecrackers in the midst of the already chaotic GOP primary field.

After facing strong pushback from Black Lives Matter protesters, Bernie Sanders' - and to be more precise, his supporters - progressive ego took some bruising. So they coalesced around this article on Alternet - 20 Examples of Bernie Sanders' Powerful Record on Civil and Human Rights. Problem is, the piece actually consists of 20 tone deaf reiterations of talking points that exemplify a lack of listening and attention to race issues. But hey, Bernie marched and he has black friends. So.

New unemployment claims are at a 42-year low, according to new data released from the Labor department. And that doesn't even take into account the substantial growth of the labor force in that time. Obama recovery roars again, this time even closer to full employment from economic disaster in less than seven years.

#AllLivesMatter. Yes, they do. But that's not the point. The reason that #BlackLivesMatter is a movement is because African Americans still struggle to secure the right to be fully equal in this country. And the present situation has a long, dark gestation.

We've all been entertained by Donald Trump's buffoonery, heralding it as the demise of the GOP. But the air he's sucking out of campaign coverage allows a field as horrific as he is to escape scrutiny. The Donald is awful; but he has no chance of winning the nomination. (At which point he could go rogue and run as an independent.) The ones who do have a chance are no different than Trump save in tone.

By now, nearly everyone has heard about Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Mally being stomped at Netroots Nation by Black Lives Matters protesters. But the incident represents a bigger problem: the devastating failure in the establishment of the self-proclaimed of the progressive movement on race. By allowing their economic displeasure to suck up air from social justice, the liberal establishment is making a grave error. But the error is unforced. The candidates, and the movement, has had stellar examples of leadership on social justice in President Obama and his administration, but chosen to blindly ignore it.

Yesterday, I detailed Bernie Sanders' problem with ethnic minorities and the psyche behind what is driving is appeal to white liberals in white liberal cities but keeping minorities on the sidelines. But it gets worse. Sanders' record on guns and his key support for racist vigilante border militia group known as the Minutemen gives us a broader window into the Senator's callous ignorance of race issues at best and his willing disregard of people of color at worst.